Kent Chrisman stood at half court inside the Tiger Den, with a wide smile across his face, and tears of joy slowly filling his eyes following Saturday's round-of-16 game of the Class 3A girls' basketball state tournament.

It's been nearly 20 years since Chrisman, now in his fifth season as the Sterling girls' basketball team's head coach, was in charge of a team that made it to the quarterfinals.

That drought came to an end on Saturday as the Tigers defeated the 2013 state runner-ups St. Mary's 50-33 to secure a spot at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs this Thursday.

Sterling has made it to the state tournament in four of the last five years under Chrisman and had moved on to the round-of-16 in each of those four seasons.

But Saturday was the first time the Tigers got over the hump to get into the quarterfinals.

"I'm so proud of the girls. This is just awesome for them," Chrisman said. "For me, personally, the last time I was at the great eight as a head coach was almost 20 years ago, so that part is going to be nice. I have a special group of girls that work well together and this experience is going to be fun. It's nice to have another week of basketball."

After scoring a season-high 98 points and cruising to a 98-38 win over Aurora West College Prep Academy on Friday night, the Tigers had their hands full early on Saturday.

Despite committing eight turnovers in the first quarter, the Lady Pirates were down just 14-11.

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They pulled even with the Tigers at the 6:47 mark of the second quarter after a 3-pointer by sophomore Sophie Rickey.

But after Rickey's basket tied the game at 14-14, Sterling finished the quarter on an 11-2 run to carry a 25-16 lead into the locker rooms.

In the third quarter, the Tigers started to put some distance between themselves and the Lady Pirates.

After surviving eight first-quarter turnovers, St. Mary's was not as fortunate in the third as the Tigers converted another eight turnovers by the Lady Pirates into 10 points to balloon the Sterling lead to 41-23 heading to the fourth.

"We just had too many turnovers and unforced errors that we normally don't make and Sterling did a good job taking advantage of them," St. Mary's head coach Mike Burkett said. "We got to where we were moving the ball around the perimeter a little bit too much and we weren't attacking, but give them (Tigers) credit. They played great defense, kept us spread out, and stop us from penetrating the middle of the paint."

St. Mary's tried to climb back into the game as it made a 7-0 run to begin the fourth quarter to close to within 11 points with 3:39 remaining. After a quick timeout by Sterling,though, the Tigers answered right back with a 9-0 run of their own spanning the next 2 minutes, 20 seconds to build their lead back up to 50-30.

"I made the comment to our coaches (Friday) night that if we could come out and reach 50 points on offense, we'd win the game," Chrisman said. "Our defense has been outstanding all year and it's always the focal point in our locker room. It creates so much of our offense."

Sterling point guard Jenna Knudson helped ice the game in the fourth quarter as the sophomore scored 11 of her 15 points in the second half and was a perfect 8 for 8 from the free-throw line in the fourth quarter.

Jenna Knudson and her back court running mate, freshman Kylie Chavez, were the two Tigers in double-figures as Chavez poured in a game-high 17 points, 13 of which came in the first half.

Juniors Maren Patten and Kenzie Chrisman added eight points and six points, respectively, to help pace the Sterling offense.

With the win, Sterling advances to play the No. 11 seed Bishop Machebeuf this Thursday at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs and, as of Saturday night, the start time for that game has not been set.

Sterling will have three days of practice this week before making the long awaited trip down to Colorado Springs. Once there, Chrisman said he and his team are hopeful they have the ability to stick around for a bit.

"When you get to the final eight, it's obviously who is playing the best at the time, but anything can happen," Chrisman said. "You never know what's going to happen. Kids can step up and kids can have off nights. Bottom line, it's an eight-man race and any team can win it. When we get down there, hopefully we can make a run."

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